Library Genesis is a real jewel of the Internet. The online library, which provides free access to more than 2.7 million books, took a long-awaited step this week. One of the library's web mirrors now makes it possible to download files via IPFS, a distributed file system.
So, the Library Genesis book collection is loaded into IPFS, pinned, and linked to search. And this means that now it has become a little harder to deprive people of access to our common cultural and scientific heritage.
About LibGen
At the beginning of the 3s, dozens of collections of scientific books lay on the still unregulated Internet. The largest collections I can remember - KoLXo2007, mehmat and mirknig - by XNUMX contained tens of thousands of textbooks, publications and other important djvushek and pdf for students.
Like any other file dumps, these collections suffered from general navigation problems. The Kolkhoz library, for example, lived on 20+ DVDs. The most demanded part of the library was moved by the hands of the elders to the hostel's file sphere, and if you needed something rare, then woe to you! At least you got a beer for the owner of the discs.
However, the collections were still tangible. And although the search for the names of the files themselves often broke down on the creativity of the creator of the file, a manual full-scan could pull out the desired book after stubbornly scrolling through a dozen pages.
In 2008, on rutracker.ru (then torrents.ru), an enthusiast published torrents that combined the existing collections of books into one big pile. In the same thread, there was a person who began the painstaking work of organizing the uploaded files and creating a web interface. This is how Library Genesis was born.
All this time from 2008 to the present moment, LibGen has been developing and replenishing its own bookshelves with the help of the community. The book metadata was edited and then saved and distributed as MySQL dumps to the public. The altruistic attitude towards metadata led to the emergence of a large number of mirrors and increased the survivability of the entire project, despite increased fragmentation.
An important milestone in the life of the library was the mirroring of the Sci-Hub database, which started in 2013. Thanks to the collaboration of the two systems, an unprecedented data set was concentrated in one place - scientific and fiction books, along with scientific publications. I have an assumption that one dump of the joint base of LibGen and Sci-Hub will be enough to restore the scientific and technological progress of civilization in case it is lost during a catastrophe.
Today, the library is quite stable afloat, has a web interface that allows you to search through the collection and download the found files.
LibGen in IPFS
And although the social significance of LibGen is obvious, the reasons why the library is constantly under threat of closure are equally obvious. This is what drives mirror maintainers to look for new ways to ensure sustainability. One of these ways was to publish the collection to IPFS.
IPFS appeared relatively long ago. High hopes were placed on the technology when it appeared, and not all of them were justified. Nevertheless, the development of the network continues, and the appearance of LibGen in it can increase the influx of fresh forces and play into the hands of the network itself.
Simplifying to the limit, IPFS can be called a file system stretched over an indefinite number of network nodes. Peer-to-peer network members can cache files on their own and distribute them to others. Files are addressed not by paths, but by a hash from the contents of the file.
Some time ago, LibGen participants announced IPFS hashes and started to distribute files. This week, links to files in IPFS began to appear in the search results of some LibGen mirrors. In addition, thanks to the actions of the activists of the Internet Archive team and the coverage of what is happening on reddit, there is now an influx of additional seeders both in IPFS and in the distribution of original torrents.
It is not yet known whether the IPFS hashes themselves will appear in the LibGen database dumps, but it seems that this is to be expected. The ability to download the collection's metadata along with IPFS hashes will lower the entry threshold for creating your own mirror, increase the stability of the entire library, and bring the dream of the library's creators closer to fruition.
PS For those who want to help the project, a resource has been created , instructions on how to configure IPFS live on it.
Source: habr.com